Reason the byas turns to good from ill,

And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.
The fiery foul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The fame ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.
This light and darkness in our chaos join'd,
What shall divide? The God within the mind.

VARIATIONS.

Whofe felf-denials nature moft controul?
His, who would fave a Six-pence or his foul?
Web for his health, a Chartreux for his Sin,
Contend they not which foonest shall grow thin?
What we refolve, we can: but here's the fault,
We ne'er refolve to do the thing we ought.

NOTES.

200

VER. 197. Reafon the byas, &c.] Left it fhould be objected, that this account favours the doctrine of Neceffity, and would infinuate that Men are only acted upon, in the production of Good out of Evil; the poet here teacheth, that Man is a free-agent, and hath it in his own power to turn the natural paffions into Virtue or into Vices, properly fo called:

Reason the byas turns to good from ill,

And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will.

VER. 204. The God within the mind. ] A Platonic phrase for Confcience; and here employed with great judgment and propriety. For Confcience either fignifies, fpeculatively, the judgment we pafs of things upon whatever principles we chance to have; and then it is only Opinion,

5.

Extremes in Nature equal ends produce,

In Man they join to fome myfterious use;

205

Tho' each by turns the other's bounds invade,
As, in fome well-wrought picture, light and shade,
And oft fo mix, the diff'rence is too nice
Where ends the Virtue, or begins the Vice.

Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,

That Vice or Virtue there is none at all.
If white and black blend, foften, and unite
A thousand ways, is there no black or white?

NOTES.

210

a very unable judge and divider. Or else it fignifies, practically, the application of the eternal rule of right (received by us as the law of God) to the regulation of our actions; and then it is properly Confcience, the God (or the law of God) within the mind, of power to divide the light from the darkness in this chaos of the paffions.

VER. 285. Extremes in Nature equal ends produce.] The poet here reasons to this effect, That though indeed Vice and Virtue fo invade each other's bounds, that fometimes we can fearch tell where one ends, and the other begins, yet great purposes are ferved thereby, no less than the perfecting the conftitution of the whole, as lights and shades, which run into one another in a well-wrought picture, make the harmony and spirit of the compofition. But, on this account, to say there is neither Vice nor Virtue, the poet fhews would be just as wife as to fay, there is neither black nor white; because the fhade of that, and the light of this, often run into one another:

Afk your own heart, and nothing is fo plain;
"Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain.

Ask your own heart, and nothing is fo plain? 215 'Tis to mistake them, cofts the time and pain.

Vice is a monster of fo frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen:

Yet feen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

220

But where th' Extreme of Vice, was ne'er agreed: Afk where's the North ? at York, 'tis on the Tweed; In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there,

At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.
No creature owns it in the first degree,

But thinks his neighbour further gone than he;
Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natures shrink at with affright,
The hard inhabitant contends is right.

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 220. in the 1ft Edition, followed these,
A Cheat! a whore! who ftarts not at the name,
In all the Inns of court or Drury-lane ?

After ver. 226. in the MS.

225

230

The Col'nel fwears the Agent is a dog,
The Scriv'ner vows th' Attorney is a rogue.
Against the Thief th' Attorney loud inveighs,
For whofe ten pound the County twenty pays.
The Thief damns judges, and the Knaves of State:
And dying, mourns fmall Villains hang'd by great.

Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree:
The rogue and fool, by fits is fair and wife;
And ev❜n the best, by fits, what they despise.
'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill;
For, Vice or Virtue, Self directs it still;
Each individual feeks a fev'ral goal;

235

But HEAV'N's great view is One, and that the Whole.
That counter-works each folly and caprice;

That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice;
That, happy frailties to all ranks apply'd;
Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride,
Fear to the Statefman, rafhnefs to the chief,
To kings prefumption, and to crowds belief;

NOTES.

240

Few,

VER. 231. Virtuous and vicious ev'ry Man muft be, in th' extreme, but all in the degree ;] Of this the Poet, with admirable fagacity, affigns the caufe, in the following

line:

For, Vice or Virtue, SELF directs it ftill.

An adherence or regard to what is, in the fenfe of the world, a man's own intereft, making an extreme in either Vice or Virtue almoft impoffible. Its effect in keeping a good Man from the extreme of Virtue, needs no explanation; and in an ill Man, Self-intereft fhewing him the neceffity of fome kind of reputation, the procuring, and preferving that, will keep him from the extreme of Vice.

That Virtue's ends from vanity can raise,

Which feeks no int'reft, no reward but praise;
And build on wants, and on defects of mind,
The joy, the peace, the glory of Mankind.
Heav'n forming each on other to depend,
A mafter, or a fervant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for affiftance call,

245

250

'Till one Man's weakness grows the strength of all. Wants, frailties, paffions, closer still ally

The common int'reft or endear the tie.

NOTES.

VER. 249. Heav'n forming each on other to depend,] Hitherto the Poet hath been employed in difcourfing of the ufe of the Paffions, with regard to Society at large; and in freeing his doctrine from objections: This is the first general divifion of the fubject of this epiftle.

He comes now to fhew the ufe of thefe Paffions, with regard to the more confined circle of our Friends, Relations, and Acquaintance: and this is the fecond general divifion.

VER. 253. Wants, frailties, paffions, clofer ftill ally, The common int'reft, &c.] As thefe lines have been mifunderstood, I fhall give the reader their plain and obvious meaning. "To thele frailties (fays he) we owe all the endearments of private life; yet when we come to that age, which generally difpofes Men to think more feriously of the true value of things, and confequently of their provifion for a future ftate, the confideration, that the grounds of those joys, loves, and friendships, are wants, frailties, and paffions, proves the best expedient to wean us from the world; a difengagement fo friendly to that provision we are now making for another," The obfervation is new